Working principles

There are many ways of getting from A to B, just as there are many alternative approaches we could take to fulfill our goals. Thus, we follow certain principles that guide us in our day-to-day work and help us make decisions.

We prioritize AI and aim for true autonomy

We focus on the development of software, as opposed to the development of hardware.
When it comes to software, we are most interested in harnessing the potential of artificial intelligence and machine learning.

We have set our sights on working towards full autonomy, rather than facilitate driver assistance.

We embrace open-source and want our research to manifest in physical experiments

We mainly focus on data-driven (machine learning based) methods in self-driving software, but also make use of the best that classical algorithms have to offer.

We make use of open-source software as much as possible and aim to make contributions of our own.

We want our research in self-driving technologies to be grounded in the real world and aim to include practical experiments in our research papers and theses.

We gladly collaborate with others, be it individuals or institutions, private or public

We involve students in our activities at every step by creating courses, study materials, competitions, supervising theses, providing internships, etc.<br>We aim to collaborate with top research groups in other universities by exchanging students. We’ll gladly share experiences by arranging visits, workshops and other events.<br>We welcome different organizations to come and harness our platform to validate their technology. For example, we let companies test their software on our car, we share our maps with them, etc.<br>

We want to realize the potential of Estonia to be the preeminent location for testing self-driving tech

We want to make Tartu the best city in the world to trial self-driving technologies, e.g. cover the entire Tartu with HD maps, create a simulation of the entire Tartu, etc.More broadly, we believe Estonia has an unique environment for validating self-driving cars due to flexible legislation and diverse weather conditions, and we aim to promote that.